NEW YORK -- Cynical about the Olympics? You must not be from Fiji.The Pacific Island nation won its first Olympic medal ever, and it was gold, by routing Great Britain in the rugby final. It was a joy to see on NBCSN, and a great example of the benefits to searching beyond NBCs prime-time to see all that is being offered.Its hard to put into words how big icons these players will be, said NBC announcer Bill Seward on Thursday. Being gold medalists, they will be heroes in their country forevermore.The win produced an outpouring of celebrations in the stands and by players after the match. The sport is huge in Fiji, and the nations prime minister traveled to Brazil for the games.RATINGS: NBC reached 26.4 million people with its Wednesday prime-time telecast, dominated by swimming and beach volleyball. Add in streaming and the 1.9 million people who watched the U.S.-Australia basketball game on NBCSN, and there was a total of 28.6 million consuming Olympic content. During the corresponding night in London, NBC had 30.8 million viewers.LEDECKYS STROKE: During an 800-meter freestyle preliminary race Thursday afternoon, NBC swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines dissected gold medalist Katie Ledeckys swimming style in illuminating fashion, explaining what put her ahead of her rivals. This is the only time I get to talk about her stroke, Gaines said. Shes so fast in the 400.FORE: NBC has clearly not been happy with the golfers who chose to stay away from Rio de Janeiro, making the Olympics first golf competition a little less star-studded than expected. Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson cited concerns about the Zika virus; some critics have suggested concerns about a lack of prize money were in the mix, too. NBC host Mike Tirico said Thursday they were missing the chance to increase their sports popularity worldwide. Im a believer that golf needs the Olympics more than the Olympics need golf, he said. Dwight Powell Jersey .Y. - Free agent outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, fresh off winning the World Series with Boston, reached agreement with the rival New York Yankees on a seven-year contract worth about $153 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday night. Derek Harper Jersey . -- Matt Ryan needed one of the best games of his career to lead the Falcons and their depleted offence out of their three-game losing streak last week. https://www.cheapmavericks.com/443l-mark-aguirre-jersey-mavericks.html .Y. -- Paul Byron and Matt Stajan scored as the Calgary Flames started a five-game road trip with a 2-1 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday afternoon. Josh Howard Jersey . -- Charlie Graham stopped 67 shots as the Belleville Bulls edged the visiting Guelph Storm 6-5 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. Dorian Finney-Smith Jersey . Miller finished in two minutes, 6.09 seconds, one day before the first medal race on the Alpine schedule. The 36-year-old American also turned in the top time in Thursdays opening training session. Mathematicians must hate it when the rest of us non-mathematicians think we are being clever in saying things like the whole is greater - or less - than the sum of its parts. How can the total ever be less than the sum of the numbers adding up to it? This is not philosophy; this is maths. Two plus two has to be four. It can be nothing else, not more or less.So it is with the greatest respect to all mathematicians that this line is wheeled out again, this time in application to this Pakistan pace attack - of which the whole currently feels distinctly less than what it should be given the sum of its individual parts.No doubt skeptics might join mathematicians in arguing that actually, the attack equals exactly the sum of its constituents; that this, the first day of Brisbane and Australia near enough 300 for just three, is how good any combination of Mohammad Amir, Rahat Ali, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Khan and Imran Khan can ever be.But how? At least in theory it looks like an excess of riches unlike any Pakistan have been able to call upon in recent times. Remember, after all, those fun days about a decade ago when the prospect of some combination of Mohammad Asif, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Shahid Nazir, Shabbir Ahmed and (we might as well throw him in) Mohammad Sami generated enough drool to turn a crater into an ocean? And yet, somehow, no potent attack from that could ever really turn out together, and certainly not for long enough for it to matter.Some just werent as good as was thought; there were drugs and there were injuries; there were dodgy actions and bad haircuts; there were fights and bans; and there was Asif, a force not ever knowingly tamed by anyone, batsmen, friends, lovers or administrators.So it must be a blessing right now that they can at least pick from the five pace options they have every Test they play. And it should be a blessing that together the quintet cover so many bases. A bit of swing in the air? No worries, Sohail will touch you up a little. Need a bit of nasty? Please, Wahab. Something cute and reliable, maybe for those UAE pitches? Thanks Rahat. Maybe a back-of-a-length, into-the-wind toiler when everyone else pulls a sickie? Ladies and gentlemen - the Imran Khan who isnt that one. And the cherry on top of this, the glue that holds them together, that once-in-a-generation star? Welcome back Amir.And yet, on days like today, and on a number of them through the tours of England and New Zealand, these options have either not seemed enough, or that there are more bases to cover than Pakistan thought. In part it is because a four-man attack with negligible part-time options is always going to be thin in modern cricket. Over in India, two sides are currently playing what seems to be the future, with five, six, even seven options in any one innings.With just four, the whole operation is fragile. In England that was at its most acute with Sohail around, lookinng as if he had just one spell in which to make it count in an entire Test.dddddddddddd. When Amir went off briefly in Brisbane, the Test may as well have been over, Pakistan already floored. The big outfields, the heat, the crowds and often the surfaces - Australia is ruthless in stretching thin attacks to the point of tearing them up. Without an allrounder they can do little about that, except fret and complain that they havent spent the last few years trying to develop one.They have not always known which permutation of the five suits their purposes, or the surface, best. Rotation is a reality and Pakistan have played on a variety of pitches this year, but seven changes to their pace bowling combination in ten Tests - no matter the divergence in conditions - suggests they are not sure what works. The three in Brisbane are the three who played the first Test at Lords this summer and then, as now, it isnt obvious that it is the right three. Rahat, in particular, has struggled in the opening innings of the three series he has played away from home this year - and with limited resources, one misfiring bowler is fatal. Even accounting for the left-handers in Australias line-up, might Imran not have been a sturdier option?In one sense, Pakistan are still adjusting to the return of Amir. They had made peace with what resources they had in his absence. Junaid Khan had skipped out of his shadow. Imran emerged. Mohammad Irfan briefly looked like he could have a Test career. Wahab found his calling. Instead, Amir waltzed back into the side once his ban ended and the men who had been holding fort either faded away, like Junaid, or began missing out, like Imran, Wahab and Rahat, who have all sat out Tests because Amir has already assumed the status of an automatic selection.Is it time then, even as early as the first skirmishes of this series, for some reassessment? That Wahab is a deliverer of good-to-great spells rather than being a good-to-great bowler and that Rahat is a slow learner? And as for Amir, maybe the swing-friendly summer of 2010 and what followed swelled in our heads the memories of how good he really was.Maybe the maths is right, that this attack is only as good as its numbers, which arent great. After all, at various points in England and New Zealand, they have collectively squandered helpful conditions.Or, as they did today, they have bowled well enough intermittently but bowled boundary balls often enough to create no pressure, deflecting it instead on Yasir Shah and earning the mistrust of their captain. The depth of that was damning enough in Misbah-ul-Haq not using two fast bowlers in tandem from the 11th over of the innings until the second new ball, as if he was trying to hide one on the first day of a series in a country where there is no place to hide. ' ' '